by Paul Almond
Keen, his faithful worker, lay dead.
* * *
Jim came bursting into the room, sweat dripping. “Byes you know how much I paid for them nails we needed?” He stopped as he saw his mother upset. “Where’s Poppa?”
Catherine glanced down. “Tom Byers came in. Said he saw a bear back by the oxen. Your father, stubborn old fool, took his musket, and off he went.”
“What? Alone? Not after a bear?”
Concern showed in his mother’s eyes. “I told him to wait, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“When?”
“Breakfast,” Catherine seemed close to tears.
“Breakfast! That long ago?”
Catherine nodded.
“I’ll take the other gun.” And grabbing it, out he went.
Before long, Jim reached the long rise and looked down beyond the stony bridge. He stopped short.
What a grisly sight! Keen lay torn open, dead, in a pool of blood. Smudge again bawled when he saw Jim coming. But Ol’ Poppa, where was he? Jim began to search the damp spring ground for tracks. Yes, bear prints, no doubt, a mother bear and one or two cubs. Danger for sure! His father would never be a match for the likes of them.
And there, yes, the flat-soled prints of his father’s boots. They went off in the same direction. Oh-oh! Should he go for help with the bear? Or track his father? He stood in the sloping field beside the great dark woods that stretched back for almost a hundred miles, broken only by the Second Range Road a mile back, and the beginnings of the Third, another mile, and then nothing but wilderness, wolves, caribou, moose — and bears.
Silence filled his ears as he pondered his decision. He lifted the musket and began to load it. Sure looked like his father was heading after the bears. In search of revenge? Fearful, Jim traced those footsteps to the bridge over the brook, and then into the pasture. Now where? Should he keep following? Or go back, get others to come beat the woods, spread out, send calls. He tipped his head back, and shouted his father’s name.
Silence. He shook his head. This time, he was really afraid. He knew in his bones what had happened. His father crashing through woods would have attracted that mother bear. Sensing a decent dinner, with her stomach raging, she must have come upon him. Old Poppa, he’d have gotten off a shot with his wavering aim and weak eyesight and then, trying to run, had tripped, and right then and there been torn to pieces.
Gripping his musket, heart beating, trusty Rusty at his heels, Jim went forward to seek out the worst.
* * *
Leaving the fallen ox, James had turned his attention for badly needed solace to the June woods. This glorious invigorating wind that blew in across the fields carried its aromas of manure, seaweed fertilizer, cattle out on new grass. If only it could always be spring.
So now he’d better head home along the Hollow trail, and get Jim Wylie the butcher. Keen would supply them and his friends with many a good feed of beef this summer. He threaded his way among the trunks of huge cedar, as he had done as a young man with the Micmac. But hard going! He used to swing through the woods at a fine trot, heavens, all the way from Port Daniel; now, he found it hard even walking.
The relentless march of time.... Again, he tried to grapple with this mysterious pattern laid down by the Almighty. What does life prepare you for? Only to leave this world and move on into the next? If there were a next. And he knew, having asked Milne as well, that the clergy seemed only to offer pat, obvious, scriptural answers. No vivid illumination. Maybe he’d have to find that himself?
He stood next to a giant pine, his hand resting on the rough trunk. So silent. But was it? No, something moving through the woods! But where? Behind? Thank heaven his hearing had not diminished. Yes, an animal, but not stealthy, no sir. He gripped his musket hard. “Well, Mrs. Bear, I’m ready,” he whispered. “I’ll just wait till you get closer, otherwise I might miss.” Adrenalin poured through him.
And then he heard a shout. The Nelson boys, crossing the brook. Well, why not? What an old fool to worry. They faded off.
Did it seem, in the impressive stillness, that all was proceeding according to some Divine Providence, God or no God? The call of a crow, almost beautiful, as was the song of the ‘oh happiness bird’ in a spruce. The brook’s gurgling nourished these songbirds; all around, small animals going about finding food, making nests for imminent broods, muskrat and mink playing in the icy waters. Further up this very brook, two beavers had made a dam to submerge their new house. And the bears, yes, on the prowl no doubt. Keep alert, he reminded himself.
He passed by shreds of birchbark on a narrow trunk reaching fifty feet up to catch sunlight. On another, intricate lace of blue green moss ascended, draped in odd patterns. He could smell so many surging plants and delighted in perky wild flowers in patches of sunlight. But there, an aged tree had not made it, withered into sticks.
Quietly in the heavy farm boots McRae had fashioned from hides of his own cattle, James made his way past turns of the brook and found them familiar. Then, by some happy intuition, he turned left and stopped. There, what remained of his cabin, still standing! Well, walls of logs and roof fallen in. Fifty years old. He sighed.
The door lay aside, rotting, but he went forward and sat on the sturdy bench he had made. Here, he had begun a good life. Never dreaming his family would begin a new community, now so grown. He leaned back and took a deep breath.
How long he sat there, he didn’t know. Had he been asleep? He heard a definite crashing through the woods. That mother bear — had he forgotten her? He stood, he’d show them all, he’d show his mettle, an old man but a sure shot still, he’d prove that by finishing off the damned killer bear, no doubt. He lifted his musket, aimed at the sounds, heart thumping.
“Poppa, Poppa.”
He shook his head. What could be wrong? He cupped his hands and hollered back, “Here, at my cabin. Come see.”
Jim ran up, frantic.
James frowned. “Something wrong back at the house?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Poppa. I...I was just worried. You know what time it is?”
James looked up to check the sun, hidden by leaves. It did seem past noon. “Must be soon time for dinner?”
Jim threw his head back in a relieved laugh. “Dinnertime? That was an hour ago. You missed it.” He grinned again. “But don’t worry Poppa, they’re holding you a plate.”
James clapped his hand on his son’s shoulder, and they set off. Father and son. To mourn their loss together.
Chapter Seventeen: 1855
“Just because she’s getting married, there’s no reason for Hannah to act like that, Poppa!” This first year after coming back, Jim was hauling timbers up the Brook Hill to build the new school. “I try to help, and she snaps — she’s like a chicken with her head cut off. One day she wants one thing, the next it’s another. Never seen anything like it.”
“Remember how your sister Ann was?” panted his father, lagging behind with his staff: that Brook Hill was steep. “Usually so mild, but didn’t she turn porcupine two weeks before the wedding? Women are just like that.”
“We didn’t have to whitewash our house before her wedding.”
“The house needs it now.”
“And the red ochre? That wasn’t needed.”
“But that trim — we splashed whitewash on it. Looks bad.”
Jim laughed. “Nothing I hate more than whitewash. Stings the hands, gets in the eyes...”
“Anyhow, try to be nicer to Hannah, she’s terble nervous.”
“All she does all day is bake, find new recipes, think up special cakes when she should be helping Momma — we’re gonna be feeding the whole of the Coast next week, the way she behaves! If I’d a known all this, I’d never have brought them scones to Edward Hayes with her last year.”
Smudge and his new partner put shoulders to the yoke and sped up over the brow, Jim hurrying beside. “Everyone sure got together and did a fine job on the new bridge over the brook down there. Yo
u must be proud.”
His father, panting behind with his staff, shook his head. “All of us, working together, we did it.” It did look good, built well above any future spring rush. “I just wonder how you’ll behave before your own wedding.”
“Not you too, Poppa!” Jim shouted at the team. “Momma’s always after me to find some girl. But I’ll never find one like Momma, I can tell ya that much.”
“If you think you’re going to end up with your mother looking after you...” James set off with his son along the dirt road to Nelson’s Lane below which Will Skene had sold his lower field for the school. “You watch how quiet the place will be in another week. Just Eleanor and me and your mother. But without Hannah.... Dunno how we’ll manage.”
Jim turned to give his father a look, and James changed the subject.
“Now Jim, you know last winter how we were complaining about not enough room for all our hay?”
“Yes sir, nearly lost a pile outside.”
“Well, I been thinking.... Maybe we should get ourselves a new barn.”
Jim let out a whoop. “That’s just about the best news ever!” So good, also, that his father seemed to be claiming it as his own idea, and not his son’s who’d been pushing for it before he’d left — indeed, one of the reasons he’d gone off to Montreal.
“Gee! Gee, boys, gee!” Jim yelled the command to turn the oxen right, down into Skenes’ lower field. Jim had spent the winter cutting this load of logs with his nephew, John. At the building, Jim undid the rope and they tumbled off in a heap.
His father stood taking it all in. Was he moved, Jim wondered. After all, the school was becoming reality. By the bank, they had dug a saw pit, and luckily, the Maugers, or Majors as they were known hereabouts, agreed to help build the actual structure, once the boards were pit-sawn.
“So Mr. Alford, how do you like your new school?” asked Fred Nelson, youngest son of James Nelson, who had arrived back the brook soon after James.
“Just fine, thank you Frederick.” James nodded at his oxen. “I’ll just take the team back — water them on the way.”
Jim checked the large foundation stones which marked the eighteen-foot-square perimeter: an achievement, no doubt. Big Henry Smith, Vid’s younger brother, Jim’s age, was setting the last one with Jimmie Robinson, a real devil, always messing about. Each family had agreed to put in time and had been apportioned jobs.
“Come on now, Jimmie, time to get to work.” Jim stood astride a beam and began swinging the broadaxe between his legs, shearing off the rounded edge of a log for the foundation.
“We just gonna put that there beam onto the foundation stones?” Jimmie asked. “What about mortar to hold it?”
“My dad’s been burning lime fer it,” Fred replied, “but he sez he don’t think we need it. With these jeesly great stones Henry’s father brought, nawthin’s ever gonna shift them, mortar or no.”
“That was the idea,” Big Henry said as he sighted along the square edge of the boulder he’d placed. The Smiths were powerful men.
Jim agreed. “Looks firm enough to me.”
Fred Nelson fell to squaring another beam. “Gonna be a big party at your place next week, they say, Jim; it’s the talk of Shegouac.”
“Yep. Hadda make a trip to Paspébiac for more flour. Tom Byers and John, they’ve been brewing buckets and buckets of beer.”
“And you’re gonna be next, Jim! We all thought fer shore you was bringing a wife back from the city.”
“Now, Fred, no one’ll get me near a woman for a good while.”
Fred grinned. “Me, I can’t wait to haul that Isabella into the hay mow. Not gonna come, she says, till she gets me to an altar.” The other two laughed. “She don’t mean it at all, at all.”
“You don’t want to go to church with her, me son,” Henry said. “We all know her type. Don’t know how to cook, don’t want no family —”
“You’re right. She just wants fun...” Fred said, ruefully.
“So, have fun!” Jim interjected. “Let her climb into that there loft with yez.”
“Sure hope you’re right.” He looked up, and Jim turned to see Margie Skene, the very girl he had rescued, come down from her house across the road with a tin pail. As she approached, Jim noticed her freckles on the straight nose, the shy brown eyes, and the curly hair done up in a bun under a bonnet. Pretty nice picture: she had filled out some in the last year too.
“Well well, Margie, thanks,” Henry held out his cup as she arrived. “I’m thirstier than a sinner in hell.” The three watched as she passed, giving them each a cold drink. “Mighty good of your poppa to send ya, Margie. And t’give us this here land.”
“Wish he’d given it sooner,” Margie said. “I been wantin’ to read and write fer a long time. We’ve all been at him, Christy and Agnes, and me brother Will.” She gave Jim a special smile and then, blushing, headed back to the Skene house by the lane.
“You know why she came, o’ course?” Jimmie Robinson asked. “She’s took a shine to ya, Jim.”
“Pshaw, she’s still a kid.” Jim gave a laugh.
“Maybe, but she sure looks ripe for a ride,” Henry said, then stopped himself as he saw a look of annoyance cross Jim’s face.
“She’s a good girl,” Jim said. “And I told you fellas, I’m not getting me no wife for a good while yet.”
Fred and Jimmie exchanged looks. Jim realized they were in cahoots, probably cooking all this up during the morning. But he did think back to the concern his father had voiced: how would his aged mother cope with two men and an old mother to feed?
“You fellas know of some young girl might like to come help Momma for the next while? She’d eat fine, and she’d have a good soft bed.”
“Fine bed fer sure, you lying between her shafts,” Fred cracked.
“What?” Henry gave a raucous laugh. “You want us to go up and down Shegouac asking who wants to share a bed with Jim?”
“You dumb sonofabitch,” growled Jim. “I ask for help and all I get is a bunch o’ stupid jokes.”
“We’ll sure do some thinking,” Fred broke in, trying to calm Jim. “What about that schoolteacher I heard they’re gonna get? Someone from away.”
“Yep,” Henry said. “Jim’s got his father to order up some young Montreal filly, so she’d stay at his place, and you kin bet fer what.”
Jim dropped his broadaxe and strode over to Henry, eyes blazing, though Henry was six inches taller and could finish Jim with one arm tied behind.
“Jim, Jim, just calm down,” Freddie said. “Henry and us, we’re only kidding ya. Look, me and some of the fellas found a keg of rum up in the loft where Poppa kep’ it hidden. Wanna come over tonight?”
Jim turned away. Whatever had possessed him to fly off the handle? Why not just laugh at these friendly jabs? “Sorry, fellas, but Hannah’s been driving me crazy. Don’t know whether she’s comin’ or goin’. I’ll be sure glad to get her out of the house. So that’s why we need a helper fer Momma.”
“How come she’s so nervous?” Fred asked. “I heard she was keen to get married. Trouble is, poor Ned, he’s so shy, no idea how he came to poppin’ the question.”
“Oh,” said Jim, “you want to know how that went?”
The others stopped their work — Jim usually told a good story.
“They’re good Catholics, of course. So when Ned got around to it, he asked her, ‘How’d you like to be buried over with my folk?’”
They all burst out laughing. “What a way to propose!”
“So Hannah, she says, ‘Well, I might not be buried with them, but I wouldn’t mind spending time in this here house you’re building. Looks pretty fine. No better carpenter than you, Edward Hayes.’” Jim laughed. “I guess that did it.”
They all fell to chuckling and gossiping. Jim thought, his sister, with all the sweat and the fuss she was causing, was still doing right. But where did that leave him?
Chapter Eighteen
“Matr
imony was ordained for the hallowing of the Union twixt man and woman,” the Rev. Mr. Milne intoned, “for the procreation of children to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord; and for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that one ought to have of the other, in both prosperity and adversity.”
He was standing before Hannah and Ned, reading the words from his large prayer book, although he pretty well knew them by heart.
James glanced around. Their relatives filled the room, while others waited outside to attend the reception. Standing behind him were Hannah’s older sister Mary Jane and husband Daniel Bisson, her brother Joseph and his wife Margaret Jane, both couples having been married the same day up in St. Peter’s church in Paspébiac. Rev. Mr. Milne had decided to conduct this ceremony privately here, which often happened when there was no church for miles. Hannah’s other sister Ann and her husband Bill Young were there, and of course the relatives of Hannah’s groom Ned Hayes: his father Will Hayes, born in Ireland, and his second wife. Too bad, thought James, my daughter Ellen couldn’t have come down with Billy Robertson from Cascapédia. All the grandchildren did look their best — but concentrate on the service, James told himself. His mind was wandering more and more of late — what was Mr. Milne saying? He was heavyset, with wire glasses, bushy white eyebrows and smooth pale cheeks flanking large lips, some paunch indicating his work was not physical but of the heart and mind. Lucky to have a clergyman here at all, James reflected.
“Edward Hayes, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony?” Lost in reverie, James found the words ringing in his head like the peal of distant church bells. What repercussions! Echoing his own ceremony with Catherine long ago.
“I will,” Ned responded. The Rev. Milne turned to Hannah. “Hannah Alford, wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband, to live together...” Oh yes, oh yes, magical words, but what was this wave of emotion coming at him? “Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him, in sickness and health; and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?” James made an effort to pull himself together.